by Jenn Lyons
Sarcodinay hit his mark because of the smoke, and the smell of burning flesh. You can’t see a vambrace’s maser without special lenses which I didn’t have active. The side of the killer’s gray jumpsuit sizzled and the flesh crisped.
The Sarcodinay had delivered a fatal wound, but no one bothered to tell the man in the gray jumpsuit. The killer didn’t react or make a sound. He continued firing as if nothing had happened. Every bullet hit the last bodyguard in the head.
The Sarcodinay’s attack gave me the distraction I needed. I hooked my foot around killer’s ankles and swept him to the ground. The submachine gun skittered across the floor. If I could get my hands around his caste mark while he was still on the ground...
He landed on his hands lightly, with the grace of years of training, and vaulted back up again. Keepers, he was fast!
The man was smiling as he looked at me. Smiling. That smile never faltered, not as he pulled back to punch me (a shot I barely blocked) or kick me (which I barely dodged). My stomach knotted at the implications. I may not have been the best shot in the League, but my hand-to-hand skills were another matter entirely.
When I kicked him, he surprised me by not dodging at all. He grunted as he flew back across the waxed marble floor—and landed right next to his submachine gun.
He fell, rolled, and I knew he would have that gun in his hand when he rose.
I drew my own pistol from under my skirt, having run out of other options.
My pistol was neither the normal League slug thrower nor a maser, but an odd-ball hybrid I’d built myself. I used a modified slug thrower of synthetic diamond rounds in tandem with a plasma burst. The plasma usually melted Sarcodinay armor enough to give the bullet a proper invitation to the party and did a whole lot of collateral damage on the side. Does a really bang-up job against Sarcodinay defense drones too. Against someone without Sarcodinay plate mail or a Human cloud suit, someone who was wearing nothing more than, say, a gray maintenance jumpsuit, it was dependably lethal, which is why I typically saved it for melting through locks.
I hit his arm, but that meant he had one less arm with which to hold his submachine gun. I expected him to drop immediately, from shock. It would have been the polite thing to do.
He didn’t.
The man stared at me, still grinning, taking no more notice of his missing arm than he had of the Sarcodinay’s maser hit. His submachine gun was pointed right at me. Even with one arm, he didn’t need any particular accuracy to drop me.
His eyes met mine. Then he pointed the gun at his own head and pulled the trigger.
I didn’t feel him die. I felt nothing at all—a curious blankness where a mind should have been.
I stared at the body, shocked. Crazy. I always feel them die.
I turned around. “Paul, let’s get these people...” I stopped.
Paul had been sitting on the couch when the fighting started, and he had never moved from it. He’d never had a chance. I had dived out of the way.
Paul hadn’t been so lucky.
A vortex of red pain sucked all the air from the room. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to faint, collapse, cry, scream, but my body was a rebel refusing to obey orders. I stood there and stared at Paul’s body, disbelieving.
I hadn’t felt him die either.
THREE.Campbell
I can still remember the first time. Hell, I can remember every time. Friends, teammates, casual acquaintances, sometimes lovers, sometimes bitter rivals. They tell you it’s war: casualties are expected. Deal with your grief in your own time. Put on a brave face and soldier on. Don’t become emotionally attached—but it’s impossible. We’re humans, not Sarcodinay. And it doesn’t grow any easier with time. The hollowness inside as you realize—even though you may have walked out of the firefight untouched—a part of you is gone for good.
People who lose limbs talk about phantom pain. Old friends are just another body part. You counted on them to always be there, like you could count on your hand to move all its fingers. You knew in your heart that they’d always be there to complain about the crappy food you fixed on your shift or the lack of supplies. When they’re gone, you still feel that pain, forever. Sometimes it dims, but sometimes you can almost hear their voice, almost feel their presence. The pain comes rushing back—the phantom pain of a missing part of you.
I lit a cigarette because there was no one else left to kill.
“This is a no smoking restaurant. Smoking is illegal. Please put out your cigarette immediately for the health and safety of both yourself and our other guests.” The hologram was practically wringing its hands. I ignored it.
“We’ll need your gun,” the Ministry of Justice officer told me. He was a short man, slender, dressed in an admin jacket and slacks. He had a masala tea complexion and a straight patrician nose. He wore a clear half-helmet that showed off his caste-mark and dark eyes. No doubt it also provided a nice head’s up display and link to Kerethres.
I sat by the indoor fountain on the other side of the restaurant from the massacre. Water splashed behind me in contrast to the red and gold blood splashed over the back wall.
“Did you hear me, Gala?”
I puffed on the cigarette. “I’ve known him since I was eight.”
“Excuse me?”
“Eight years old. He was so small. I remember that. He was an orphan. Well, we both were, but I didn’t know it yet. He knew. He saw his parents die, mowed down by a Sarcodinay knight. He was a Wilder from Hellaye, back before the Sarcs razed it in retaliation for those terrorist hits on Sarcos. Disney tribe, I think—”
“Gala—”
“This is a no-smoking restaurant. Smoking is illegal...”
A voice off to the side said, “Forestal, is that one scanned yet?”
The MOJ man said, “Yes Tal, I just...” His head jerked upwards, confirming my theory about his link to Kerethres. No doubt he’d just received the report back on that full body scan he’d asked for. He turned his gaze back towards me, then gulped air and did his best impersonation of a tunnel. “Err...stay right there Gala, I mean...Ara.”
“Who’s going anywhere?” I commented to empty space. “He was so beautiful. Even as a child—it didn’t seem right for a Wilder to be that gorgeous. Wilders are supposed to be rough and ugly with bad teeth and lots of acne scars. He never looked like a barbarian. He couldn’t have been more beautiful if he’d been built that way.”
“...for the health and safety of both yourself...”
“Plagues! Medusa, can’t you turn that thing off?”
“...this is a no-smoking...” The hologram flickered and vanished.
“Thanks.”
“No problem, but I think you’re worrying the Ministry of Justice officers.”
“Let them worry. I can’t find it in myself to care.”
The crime scene was a mess. Collection was still in progress, but too many people waited for interviews and too much evidence needed to be gathered, all publicly. Restaurant patrons complained they were too important to detain this way and MOJ ignored them.
Eventually someone would remember to remove the bodies. I had all the time I could possibly want to sit there and stare at Paul’s corpse, at the gaping crisped hole through his chest.
Someone should have covered the body.
“What’s the problem, Forestal?” The voice was deep, resonant, professional and bone-weary. That voice hadn’t slept any lately, and didn’t sound like it expected to in the near future, either.
“It’s the woman in gold and white sitting by the fountain. See her?”
“Even if I was blind.”
“Tal?”
“Never mind. Keepers, what is it with the sumptuary violations? Did someone send out a memo?” Pause. “And no, I do not want you to write her up for that.”
“But Tal—I mean, of course. Whatever you say. The problem is that some of the other patrons said she was sitting with one of the victims, and I think she’s in shock about what happened, so I scanned her. Let
me send it to you.”
A slow hiss of breath. “Where is she hiding all that?”
“The restaurant computer had her ID. She’s wearing a scholar-caste mark, but Kerethres has her flagged servant-caste, an Ara. Name’s Ara-MacLain Mallory. She’s a Lieutenant in the League. Just flew in this morning on a private League shuttle.”
“Why does that name sound familiar?”
“Black flag, Tal. She’s the one behind all those prison breaks.”
“Oh. Her. My day just gets better and better, doesn’t it?”
Footsteps then, headed in my direction.
“Lieutenant? We’re going to clear this all up. Don’t worry about that. I need to see your weapons though. All of them.”
I looked up. Standing above me was one of the largest humans I’d ever seen. If he’d been with the League he’d have been given a call-sign like ‘Tower’ or ‘Mountain,’ something that demonstrated massive strength and unending inflexibility. His face was a chiseled mass of angles, and he stood with a straightness that suggested steel girders and artificial bracing. He wore Ministry of Justice robes that looked like they had once been pressed to razor sharpness, but had since been slept in for several nights running. One braid of his three-braid mandatory administrator hairstyle was starting to come loose, peeking out from under his helmet. He needed a shave.
He’d needed a shave yesterday too.
I stared at him with hate in my eyes. “Clear it up or clean it up?”
The corners of his mouth turned down. “Don’t make any trouble. I don’t want to arrest you, but if you force